Online Encyclopedia
Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.
ACADEMY, GREEK
Online EncyclopediaEncyclopedia Home :: A10-ADA
del.icio.us it!
|
See also:ACADEMY, See also:GREEK or ACADEME (Gr. &KaSi See also:gem or KaSttµ(a), the name given to the philosophic successors of See also:Plato. The name is derived from a See also:pleasure-See also:garden or gymnasium situated in the suburb of the Ceramicus on the See also:river Cephissus about a mile to the See also:north-See also:west of See also:Athens from the See also:gate called Dipylum. It was said to have belonged to the See also:ancient See also:Attic See also:hero Academus, who, when the Dioscuri invaded See also:Attica to recover their See also:sister See also:Helen, carried off by See also:Theseus, revealed the See also:place where she was hidden. Out of gratitude the Lacedaemonians, who reverenced the Dioscuri, always spared the Academy during their invasions of the See also:country. It was walled in by See also:Hipparchus and was adorned with walks, groves and fountains by See also:Cimon (Plut. Cim. 13), who bequeathed it as a public pleasure-ground to his See also:fellow-citizens. Subsequently the garden became the resort of Plato (q.v.), who had a small See also:estate in the neighbourhood. Here he taught for nearly fifty years till his See also:death in 34.8 B.C., and his followers continued to make it their headquarters. It was closed for teaching by Justinian in A.D. 529 along with the other See also:pagan See also:schools. See also:Cicero borrowed the name for his See also:villa near See also:Puteoli, where he composed his See also:dialogue .The, See also:Academic Questions. The Platonic Academy (proper) lasted from the days of Plato to those of Cicero, and during its whole course there is traceable a distinct continuity of thought which justifies its examination as a real intellectual unit. On, the. other See also:hand, this continuity of thought is by no means an identity. The Platonic See also:doctrine was so far modified in the hands of successive scholarchs that the Academy has been divided into either two, three or five sections (Sext. Empir. Pyrrh. Hyp. i. 220). Finally, in the days of See also:Philo, See also:Antiochus and Cicro the metaphysical dognlatis i of Plato had been changed into an ethical See also:syncretism which combined elements from the See also:Scepticism of Cameades and the doctrines of the See also:Stoics; it was a See also:change from a dogmatism which men found impossible to defend, to a See also:probabilism which afforded a See also:retreat from Scepticism and intellectual anarchy. Cicero represents at once the doctrine of the later Academy and the See also:general attitude of See also:Roman society when he says, " My words do not proclaim the truth, like a Pythian priestess; but I conjecture what is probable, like a See also:plain See also:man; and where, I ask, am I to See also:search for anything more than verisimilitude?" And again: " The characteristic of the Academy is never to interpose one's See also:judgment, to approve what seems most probable, to compare together different opinions, to see what may be advanced on either See also:side and to leave one's listeners See also:free to See also:judge without pretending to dogmatize." The passage from Sextus Empiricus, cited above, gives the general view that there were three See also:academies: the first, or Old, academy under See also:Speusippus and See also:Xenocrates; the second, or See also:Middle, academy under See also:Arcesilaus and Polemon; the third, or New, academy under See also:Carneades and See also:Clitomachus. Sextus notices also the theory that there was a See also:fourth, that of Philo of See also:Larissa and Charmidas, and a fifth, that of Antiochus. See also:Diogenes Laertius says that Lacydes was the founder of the New Academy (i. 19, iv. 59). Cicero (de Orat. iii. 18, &c.) and See also:Varro insist that there were only two academies, the Old and the New. Those who maintain that there is no See also:justification for the five-See also:fold See also:division hold that the See also:agnosticism of Cameades was really latent in Plato, and became prominent owing to the See also:necessity of refuting the Stoic criterion.
The general tendency of the Academic thinkers was towards See also:practical simplicity, a tendency due in large measure to the inferior intellectual capacity of Plato's immediate successors. Cicero (de Fin. v. 3) says generally of the Old Academy: " Their writings and method contain all liberal learning, all See also:history, all polite discourse; and besides they embrace such a variety of arts, that no one can undertake any See also:noble career without their aid. . . . In a word the Academy is, as it were, the workshop of every artist." It is true that these men turned to scientific investigation, but in so doing they escaped from the high altitudes in which Plato thought, and tended to See also:lay emphasis on the mundane side of See also:philosophy. Of Plato's originality and speculative See also:power, of his See also:poetry and See also:enthusiasm they inherited nothing, " nor amid all the learning which has been profusely lavished upon investigating their tenets is there a single See also:deduction calculated to elucidate distinctly the See also:character of their progress or regression " (See also:Archer See also: 
315). The modification of Academic doctrine from Plato to Cicero may be indicated briefly under four heads. (I) Plato's own theory of Ideas was not accepted even by Speusippus and Xenocrates. They argued that the See also:Good cannot be the origin of things, inasmuch as Goodness is only found as an attribute of things. Therefore, the See also:idea of Good must be secondary to some other more fundamental principle of existence. This unit Speusippus attempted to find in the See also:Pythagorean number-theory. From it he deduced three principles, one for See also:numbers, one for magnitude, one for the soul. The Deity he conceived as that living force which rules all and resides everywhere. Xenocrates, though like Speusippus infected with Pythagoreanism, was the most faithful ,of Plato's successors. He distinguished three See also:spheres, the sensible, the intelligible, and a third compounded of the two, to which correspond respectively, sense, See also:intellect and See also:opinion (See also:Sofa). Cicero notes, however, that both Speusippus and Xenocrates abandon the Socratic principle of hesitancy. (2) Up to Arcesilaus, the' Academy accepted the principle of finding a general unity in all things, by the aid of which a principle of certainty might be found. Arcesilaus, however, See also:broke new ground by attacking the very possibility of certainty. . See also:Socrates had said, " This alone I know, that I know nothing." But Arcesilaus went farther and denied the possibility of even the Socratic minimum of certainty: " I cannot know evenwhether I know or not." Thus from the dogmatism of the See also:master the Academy plunged into the extremes of agnostic See also:criticism. (3) The next See also:stage in the Academic See also:succession was the moderate scepticism of Carneades, which owed its existence to his opposition to See also:Chrysippus, the Stoic. To the Stoical theory of See also:perception, the See also:Oat, See also:rack KaraXflrruc1 , by which they expressed a conviction of certainty arising from impressions so strong as to amount to See also:science, he opposed the doctrine of acatalepsia, which denied any necessary See also:correspondence between perceptions and the See also:objects perceived. He saved himself, however, from See also:absolute scepticism by the doctrine of See also:probability or verisimilitude, which may serve as a practical See also:guide in See also:life. Thus his criterion of See also:imagination (cavravia) is that it must be credible, irrefutable and attested by comparison with other impressions; it may be wrong, but for the See also:person concerned it is valid. In See also:ethics he was an avowed sceptic. During his See also:official visit to See also:Rome, he gave public lectures, in which he successively proved and disproved with equal ease the existence of See also:justice. (4) In the last See also:period we find a tendency not only to reconcile the See also:internal divergences of the Academy itself, but also to connect it with parallel growths of thought. Philo of Larissa endeavours to show that Cameades was not opposed to Plato, and further that the apparent antagonism between Plato and See also:Zeno was due to the fact that they were arguing from different points of view. From this syncretism emerged the prudent non-committal See also:eclecticism of Cicero, the last product of Academic development. For detailed accounts of the Academicians see SPEUSIPPUS, XENOCRATES, &C.; also STOICS and See also:NEOPLATONISM. Consult histories of philosophy by See also:Zeller and Windelband, and Th. See also:Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, ii. 270 (Eng. tr., See also:London, 1905). Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML. Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide. |
|
|
[back] ACADEMIES |
[next] ACADEMY, ROYAL |